The News Rundown

‘A mandate to get to work:’ Liberals secure majority with Toronto byelection wins

Results
CBC majority projection
Bad results for the Conservatives? Two Toronto and one Montreal
Majority was not "earned" through by-elections. Even the Bloc agrees
Dirty Back Room deals
The procedures involved
Supplementals:

Last weekend at the Liberal party’s convention the Liberal members voted in favour of restrictions on social media and chatbots for those under the age of 16.
The policy resolutions said, "These technologies have been shown to limit desire for interaction with peers, pushed some young people into sexual conversations and have even recommended suicide to vulnerable youth.”
While this may become policy in Canada it skirts a very important issue, parental choice and device manufacturers settings.
The idea of potentially banning social media for those under the age of 16 is also gaining traction in Ontario.
Ontario Education Minister Paul Calandra said as part of the province’s school cell phone ban that social media could also be banned.
Ontario is looking to Australia. He said, “I’m looking at some of the work that has been done in Australia, some of the work that they’re trying to do in some of (American) states with respect to limiting students’ access to social media.”
Global News who spoke with the Ontario Education Minister also cited polling from both Angus Reid and Ipsos that shows that Canadians would be receptive to such a ban with 75% saying they support a full ban. Ipsos found a general global consensus that social media should be banned for children under 14.
This has all made its way to Ottawa with Heritage Minister Marc Miller saying the government is “very seriously” considering such a ban.
CBC News also spoke with Industry Minister Melanie Joly following the by-elections and she said that she’d like to see the new majority pass something like the this social media ban or the online harms act.
AI chatbots are also on the radar because it is what the Tumbler Ridge perpetrator used as a counselling agent in dealing with their transgenderism. A connection to the shooting has been inferred but the actual evidence will likely never see the light of day.
On the topic of a social media ban for minors though the opposition says they are open to the discussion.
Conservative MP Michael Barrett, the party's ethics critic said the provisions warrant more study and “this is a rapidly changing environment, particularly with AI.”
Media reporting everywhere including in the aforementioned polls skirt the question of parental decision making and parental duty.
Shockingly the only place to have a discussion on the parental duty aspect of this policy was the online forum, Reddit.
The media, polling companies, and governments at all levels that have commented on his policy have not at all raised the issue of parental rights and responsibilities.
What this ultimately falls down to is a massive level of support for this government in the current times we live where people are willing to let the government effetely parent their children.
Past attempts at such a policy in Australia have used some combination of parental verification, online ID, or AI identification of facial features to infer age.
That being said though there are those that feel this is an admission that social media products can never be safe.
Taylor Owen, the Beaverbrook Chair in Ethics, Media and Communications at McGill University said, “The companies are choosing to make them unsafe and we are allowing them to be unsafe by not regulating them."
Owen also said that if teens want to they will find other ways to access the platforms or just move to private platforms that could be even more unsafe. Where does it end>
This is why it’s important that parents have a major stake in the discussions to come.
The simple way globally to solve this problem is on device. Have Microsoft, Apple, and Google verify that their parental controls work on device. Then mandate that all social apps in specific regions implement the parental control frameworks already present on iOS and Android.
Then from there parents are the ultimate gatekeepers when they set up the device or allow it into the house.
If that is not good enough that speaks to bigger issues within our society that the government is not capable of addressing.
Supplementals:

Signature collection only has a few weeks remaining on the question about whether or not Alberta should leave Canada and become an independent country.
Last week the Court of King’s Bench issued a stay in survey verification. This means that, for now, once the petition period is complete the survey can not be verified.
While this action on its own may feel like it is designed to grant a dose of sober second thought, it will undoubtedly end up creating more Albertans who vote for independence.
Court of King’s Bench Justice Shaina Leonard issued her first, limited ruling in the case — on a stay application from the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and the Blackfoot Confederacy.
The First Nations bands involved asked for the court to temporarily block the Chief Electoral Officer from certifying the petition pending a final decision on the case.
Judge Shaina Leonard issued the stay for approximately one month while the court reviews the materials and oral submissions.
A majority of media coverage does not get into the minutae of the case. The blanket discussion as to why the pause has been issued was to look at the constitutional impact on treaty rights.
Judge Leonard was convinced the bands had proven there was a “serious issue” to be tried; that they would suffer “irreparable” harm (which “cannot be quantified in monetary terms … cannot be cured, or … compensated in damages”) without a stay; and that the “balance of convenience” (which party will suffer the greater harm if an injunction is granted or refused) favoured the nations.
First things first this is presented as a pause in the media but the work is left to the imagination of the reader. This is not a final decision on any independence movements legality.
The serious issue at hand is the treaty rights negotiated with Canada.
The harm that could come from it is a potential detachment of treaty rights.
The balance of convenience is leaned on as this is a short stay of about 30 days and the court sees this as causing less harm than simply letting the petition proceed.
The Crown through this case and previous ones feels a duty to consult. That’s where things get murky legally.
There is a world where the court determines that the First Nations must be involved in any independence process.
If the court ruled this it would be appealed to the Supreme Court. This of course raises the idea of federalism once again putting its boot on the neck of Alberta.
Listeners will recall that last year the Alberta government removed the prior constitutional screening required before a referendum could go to petitioning process.
The court has found a way against that piece of legislation tabled by Alberta.
Looking forward this court process could invalidate the entire process before any vote happens, set a broad legal precedent where Treaties would have an impact on what the borders of an independent Alberta look like, and ultimately could slow down the process that the Alberta independence supporters have been championing.
Quebec’s referendum was not as big of an issue and Treaty rights were treated as secondary. The 1998 Supreme Court of Canada succession reference regarding Quebec said that any referendum with a clear majority would trigger good faith negotiations.
Alberta’s petition is being held on a 1998 Haida nation duty to consult legislation and modern Aboriginal title concerns.
The hope from groups such as former deputy Premier Thomas Lukazuk’s group is that the question be put to the legislature and the legislature simply say that Alberta should remain in Canada.
This issue presents its own separate problem which we’ll deal with in a moment.
The more likely outcome is that the Premier and the cabinet will see two petitions with significant support, one of which was verified.
Given that a referendum is already happening, Smith and her government could simply make the Forever Canada petition a government referendum and hold that this fall.
The question though would be reversed, “do you agree that Alberta shall remain a province within a united Canada?”
By taking the route of having the legislature shut down the debate that feeds into what independence supporters feel is the problem.
Generally the qualms of independence supporters are brushed aside or painted as coming from an area such as lacking education.
This only creates more independence supporters as does quashing democratic efforts either legislatively or through the courts.
We see this angle in the media story after story where they frame stories as about “Alberta separation” when in reality the petition being signed now is about “Alberta independence.”
The language used here speaks volumes and says how the media sees the independence movement.
Given recent developments in Ottawa, the Prime Minister, Smith, the media, and all establishment stakeholders should be doing everything they can to ensure the actions they take do not needlessly inflame the tensions already present.

Quote of the Week

“This is getting ridiculous. A few more of these and we are edging into Italian territory. Floor-crossing is so endemic in the Italian parliament it even has a name: trasformismo. Recent parliaments have seen as many as a quarter to a third of the legislators switch parties, often in pursuit of office of some kind.” - Globe and Mail Columnist Robert Fife on the recent floor crossings.

Word of the Week

Trasformismo - an Italian political strategy, originating in the 1880s, where governing coalitions are formed by co-opting opposition members, creating a fluid center to prevent strong opposition. It prioritizes stability and pragmatism over rigid ideology, often resulting in centrist, clientelistic, and less democratic political outcomes.

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Show Data

Episode Title: The Italian Strategy
Teaser: Three by-elections result in a new Liberal majority, the Liberals want to ban teens from social media, and David Eby backs down from proposed DRIPA changes. Also, the court system intervenes in Alberta's independence movement.
Production Code: WC-464-2026-04-18
Recorded Date: April 18, 2026
Release Date: April 19, 2026
Duration: 1:07:43
Edit Notes: Pause after AB story, WOTW insert.

Podcast Summary Notes

Duration: XX:XX